


fractured measures

by troubled



Category: DBSK | Tohoshinki | TVfXQ | TVXQ
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-10
Updated: 2018-11-10
Packaged: 2019-08-21 17:17:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16580723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troubled/pseuds/troubled
Summary: three halves don't make a whole.it's never easy to share. hojun learns that the hard way.





	fractured measures

**Author's Note:**

> the heart is a fickle thing.

 

"Why the hell are you doing this, man?"  
  
Hojun closes his eyes, cloudless blue sky burnt to the back of his head and he hears reproach in Yeonsook's voice.  
  
"Who knows."

 

*

 

Hojun thinks it's unfair. He could've fallen in love with a girl, soft and pretty. Who calls him 'oppa' and cheers for him when he performs, sends cute messages each night before they sleep. _I love you, oppa_. Could've been.  
  
Instead, Hojun finds a junior who wears his heart on his sleeve and it's like being caught off-guard, stumbling off a flight of stairs. Yunho calls him ' _hyung_ ', soft and pretty (but in a vastly different way than the girls Hojun had dated before) and he smashes through life with the kind of enthusiasm that should’ve made him the butt of everyone’s joke.

But he isn’t. He’s the flame, the rest the moths and Hojun watches as the world falls in love with Jung Yunho. Head over heels.  
  
They get close. Yunho joins the Theatre Club and they get closer. Yunho is not a natural actor, too much of himself to ever inhibit any other skin, but he treats criticism like firewood. He feeds them to some kind of an internal combustion engine that keeps him going at breakneck speed. He burns brighter when they stage a musical, when he nails the dancing parts as easy as breathing and leaves the rest of the cast slack-jawed.

Hojun meets his dance crew the week after.

They’re popular, good enough to win competitions and compete with larger crews. Yunho dances in the centre and he moves like a dream, like silken heat. Hojun takes their practice videos if he’s around and sometimes, when Yunho looks straight into camera with that hitched grin and electric-bright eyes, he imagines Yunho looking straight at him. Just him. It’s all he can do to keep his hands from shaking, ruining the shot.  

Hojun catches up with his feelings one day and kisses Yunho in the washroom after rehearsal, when everyone else has already headed home. It’s not part of the plan, but he’s running out of time. And patience. Yunho makes a sweet, startled sound but he kisses back anyway, smiles between their pressed lips as the door swings open.  
  
"Hyung, how long are you gonna—"  
  
Hojun jerks back, heart flatlining in his chest. Changmin stands rooted in the doorway, eyes beginning to narrow and mouth set in a thin, dangerous line. He’s one of the club’s newest members, but he’s known Yunho for years. Neighbours, someone had told Hojun once. Yunho licks his lips and Hojun’s stomach clenches. Changmin steps inside and closes the door; it bangs, loud and disapproving.  
  
Hojun looks at Changmin.

Thinks, _I could’ve fallen in love with a girl._

 

*

 

The hall crowds with spectators and students from different schools flying their own colours, cheers rattling the roof. The surface of the water is almost mirror-smooth, if not for ripples from tiny buoys separating the lanes, and they’re reciting the names of those involved in the earlier heats. Qualification rounds. The voice echoes, rising above the din and Yunho leads Hojun to one of the lower bleachers. They don’t have to wait long before Changmin emerges from somewhere Hojun can’t see.  
  
He walks over, still in his sweats and headphones curled around his neck.

Yunho’s smile widens. Hojun crosses his legs and stares at a multi-coloured banner across the hall.  
  
"You know I’m gonna win this easily, right?" Changmin says, more a statement than question. He’s moved through the age groups a regional champion and it’s like pitting a shark against goldfishes. "You owe me an ice cream after this. Just like always."  
  
It’s a reminder, meant to be thrown in Hojun’s face. Because Yunho is exclusively Changmin’s before Hojun meanders into the picture and they have traditions Hojun isn’t part of. They have _history_. He reads resentment in the flicker of Changmin’s eyes, but they’re gone when Changmin turns back to Yunho. Who’s wishing him _good luck_ like he needs it and squeezing Changmin's hand. They grin at each other until someone shouts Changmin's name from the other side of the hall.  
  
Hojun rips open a bag of chips. Yunho leans against him, warm and affectionate.

 

*

 

"Let's do something else," Yunho says. They walk out of the ice cream parlour with different flavours on their respective cones, different colours. Hojun’s fingers are already sticky. "Something fun."

"Karaoke?" Changmin swipes a tongue over the melting shape of his pistachio and mint ice cream. His hair is still wet, settling into little curls at the back of his nape. "We haven't been there in a while."  
  
Karaoke means a dark, cramped room. Rotating songs and music playing in the background as they take turns kissing, teasing Yunho against worn couch and beer stains. It means Hojun will choose random songs from trending girl groups and Yunho will be too busy giggling to sing properly, Changmin grumbling as he shells peanuts.  
  
Karaoke means Yunho pressed between them for the last song. Changmin dropping kisses on Yunho's neck and Hojun's fingers sliding underneath creased uniform. An awkward tangle of legs and hands as they breathe, move in sync, Yunho pulling them together like gravity.

 

*

 

Yeonsook crumples a wad of paper and throws them at Hojun's head. "Isn't he selfish?"  
  
"It's not like that," Hojun says, frowns at his best friend. Their notes lay scattered on the table but they've stopped pretending to study hours ago. “Shut up.”  
  
Hojun glances at his watch. Thirty minutes until Yunho's class ends.  
  
"He should've picked one of you."  
  
"You don't understand."  
  
Yeonsook looks offended, shakes his head and Hojun scribbles nonsense onto a scrap paper just to stop himself from telling Yeonsook that maybe he's the selfish one.  
  
After all. If Yunho doesn't choose, Yunho can't _not_ choose him.

 

*

 

The clock reads twenty minutes past two when Hojun's phone chimes with a message. He blinks a couple of times until he can read tiny words over blue glow and he stumbles from the bed so fast he nearly trips, grabs his jeans and a hoodie on his way out. The street is empty, dark windows looking down at him in reproach. He’s not supposed to be up and about, not right now. He gulps for air and breaks into a jog.  
  
Yunho looks up from the swing and Hojun's breath hitches when he sees _redbluepurple_ colours the corner of Yunho's smile.  
  
Hojun drops to his knees between Yunho's legs.  
  
"Fuck. What the fuck happened to you?" Hojun maps the bruise with trembling fingertips. "Who—"  
  
Yunho shakes his head, doesn't say anything and Hojun's fingertips are red when he curls them to his palm. The swing creaks, wind loud against their discordant heartbeats. Yunho is supposed to burn forever, but the fire has now been reduced to a smoulder. Trampled by unseen feet. Hojun would’ve offered murder if he thought it would help. But he knows this is temporary – come morning, this is nothing more than a fleeting dream, a sliver of nightmare.  
  
"It hurts," Yunho rasps, voice splintered. He sways back and forth, and Hojun rests hands on Yunho's thighs to keep him still. "I'm sorry I called you out, hyung."  
  
"Why are you apologising, idiot."  
  
"Can we just—" Warm air brushes Hojun's ear, sends dread skittering along his spin as Yunho leans forward, presses his face to Hojun's shoulder. "—stay here for a bit?"  
  
Hojun wraps an arm around Yunho's neck, tries to ignore it when he feels Yunho shudders, tears staining his favourite hoodie.

A gleeful, ugly voice in his head points out that Changmin isn’t here.

Changmin isn’t here and Hojun is.

It tastes like victory. Like poison.

 

*

 

Changmin sees the damage the next day and Yunho soothes him with tiny kisses. Tells him _it’s okay_ and _it’s not a big deal_ , as if they did not spend nearly an hour in that deserted playground. Changmin's head dips, seeking reassurance, and their lips brush in slow-motion. Hojun scratches the back of his neck and averts his eyes. He counts until five. Sometimes ten but Yunho usually doesn't keep him waiting.  
  
Fingers light on his wrist, a soft murmured _Hojun_ and Yunho kisses him exactly the same way, one two three four five seconds. Hojun can't really tell if the residual strawberry bubblegum taste belongs to Yunho or Changmin but he convinces himself it's Yunho's and it's okay. It's okay.  
  
He catches Changmin's eyes when he pulls away and it's not an understanding as much as grudging acceptance looking back at him.

 

*

 

"Once we finish school, I'll find an apartment and we'll live together." Changmin touches Yunho's fingers as he speaks, eyes linger on fading bruises. When he says _we_ , he doesn't look at Hojun. "You won’t have to worry about anything. You can dance all day and I’ll always be there for you, hyung." He pauses to drag a thumb over Yunho’s cheekbone. "That sounds great, right?"  
  
"And Hojun-hyung?" Yunho's chair scrapes a half-moon on the floor. Sunset paints the classroom in hues, silence seeping from the empty hallways several feet away. The door isn’t locked and anyone could’ve walked in, sees the skewed angle of their intertwined existence. "What will hyung do?"  
  
Changmin takes seconds to answer, awkward and stumbling as if the idea never occurred to him. "He'll act? In dramas?"  
  
Hojun presses his forehead against the glass window. He thinks living with Changmin will be a nightmare. Yunho's reflection smiles at him with eyes dark and quiet.  
  
Hojun exhales slowly.  
  
"Sounds perfect."

 

*

 

**end**


End file.
